Kendra Strauss Just recovery or care economy? Feminist economic geography and care after COVID

Feminist economic and labour geographers have long engaged with feminist economics and feminist political economy as fields that offer frameworks that can be “spatialized” to ground critical analyses of capitalism and the production of social difference. From economic decision-making to labour market change to financialization, these approaches have gendered geographical political economy and spotlighted gaps and silences. The COVID-19 pandemic has further demonstrated what many feminist economic and labour geographers have long argued: feminized and racialized care labour is essential work that is invisibilized and devalued in both the public and private spheres. In this seminar I draw on recent research on the restructuring of seniors’ care in B.C., Canada, to demonstrate what a feminist political economy analysis can add to the growing body of work in geography on rent relations. I also, however, pose some questions about the limitations of feminist political economy approaches for feminist economic and labour geographers grappling with the politics of post-COVID 19 economies and geographies.